BeInCrypto Global

Avalanche founder Emin Gün Sirer argues that AI could uncover security flaws in the XRP Ledger. He says that threat deserves more attention than the fall of existing cryptography.
His warning arrives as the ledger faces renewed scrutiny over an emergency software update.
The debate on the threat AI poses for crypto is mostly just wankery.We will see AI exploit systems-level bugs far before ECDSA falls. We will see AI discover bugs in systems code, libraries and wallets that enable attackers to steal billions of dollars long before we have to…
— Emin Gün Sirer🔺⚔️ (@el33th4xor) October 9, 2026
AI Could Uncover Security Flaws in the XRP Ledger
AI-driven vulnerability discovery means using AI models to find software bugs that humans have missed. Attackers can exploit those bugs before developers patch them. Sirer argued on X that AI:
Will likely exploit system-level bugs well before ECDSA becomes obsolete.
In his view, advanced models could find flaws in blockchain software, libraries, and wallets that humans have overlooked.
That shifts the focus from future cryptographic breaks to the quality of code today.
He warned that attackers could use such bugs to steal billions before AI breaks widely used cryptography. That scenario would involve bugs the community has not yet detected.
Sirer did not identify any unpatched XRP Ledger vulnerability, however, nor did he demonstrate an AI attack on the network. His argument is a warning rather than a documented exploit.
Is the Industry Looking at the Wrong Threat?
The debate has divided crypto leaders:
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently warned that AI-driven mathematical discovery could threaten lattice-based cryptography within two years.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson called those concerns speculative and said math cannot back up such predictions.
Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has voiced concern that AI could eventually attack ECDSA, a widely used method for signing transactions.
Sirer admits that the cryptography threat cannot be fully dismissed. Still, he believes the community should focus first on software vulnerabilities that already exist.
The XRP Ledger context adds urgency. Developers rolled out an emergency software update on September 25, and the initial security fixes were released without source code.
The team promised to publish that code along with a technical retrospective.
xrpld 3.4.1 is being released with a Batch fix and stability improvements.We’re asking validators and node operators to upgrade as soon as possible. There has been no impact to mainnet, and no loss of funds.There is also a new fix amendment, fixBatchV1_2, which addresses a… pic.twitter.com/anvZzzghJo
— XRP Ledger Operations (@XRPLOperations) September 25, 2026
Earlier, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse criticized Sirer over claims about Ripple’s traction with banks. Sirer’s comments reframe the debate around software security rather than cryptography alone.

The AI boom has driven the 2026 stock market, but the S&P 500’s best performer so far this year is not a chipmaker. It is a COVID vaccine maker, up 663% after closing at $225 on Friday.
That lead rests on a cancer vaccine trial whose detailed results have not been released. In mid-August, the company’s shares were still down nearly 90% from their pandemic peak.
How Moderna Stock Climbed Past Every AI Name
The company is Moderna (MRNA), best known for its COVID shot. On August 19, it and drugmaker Merck said their experimental cancer vaccine had passed a final-stage trial in skin cancer patients.
The news landed after a rough stretch. COVID vaccine sales had collapsed, and Moderna cut more than 800 jobs last year.
Shares closed up 177% that day, then fell 24% the next, according to the Inquirer. BeInCrypto had already flagged Moderna’s 2026 comeback in June, when the stock was up 125% on a flu vaccine approval.
On Friday, the gains extended, with Moderna rejoining the Nasdaq-100, an index of Nasdaq’s largest non-financial companies.
BREAKING: $MRNA is up +8% today as it joins the Nasdaq-100, and it is now the best performing S&P 500 stock of 2026, up +620%.$10,000 invested in Moderna at the start of 2026 is now worth over $72,000. pic.twitter.com/HtvNt63g9L
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) October 9, 2026
More than 200 funds holding over $800 billion track it, Nasdaq said, so they had to buy the shares.
The same day, The New York Times reported a COVID-style national cancer vaccine push, expected to launch in December. Moderna closed 14% higher.
Moderna Stock Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance
AI names sit just behind. SanDisk, which sells memory chips to AI data centers, is up 566% this year, riding AI memory chip demand. The S&P 500 has gained about 14%.
October Is Critical For Moderna Stock Price
So far, Moderna and Merck have said the vaccine worked but have not shown how well. Investors get the full numbers on October 24, at a major cancer conference in Madrid.
“It provides proof of principle that personalised cancer vaccines work,” Marco Gerlinger, a professor at Barts Cancer Institute, told the Pharmaceutical Journal.
Notably, not every investor is buying the rally. Martin Shkreli, a former drug company executive, gives the Moderna stock bubble up to six months to burst.
moderna $MRNA is a great short if you can tough it out and wait 6 months
— Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) October 9, 2026
Moderna is now worth about $89.8 billion, and rivals BioNTech and Genentech are testing a cancer vaccine of their own.

Three small bets that Katie Zacharia would become Trump’s press secretary went in before the news broke. Kalshi is now investigating the trades, which risked under $175 and could pay more than $9,500.
Zacharia was not seen as a front-runner. In the days before President Donald Trump named her on Friday, bettors on Kalshi gave her about a 1% chance.
Bets on Who will be Trump’s next Press Secretary. Source: Kalshi How Did Bets on a 1% Trump Press Secretary Pick Land Early?
Kalshi is a prediction market regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Users buy contracts on real-world events. Each contract pays $1 if the event happens, so a 1% chance costs about 1 cent.
The first bet, for $19, went in around 10:43 p.m. ET on Thursday. That’s according to a Journal review of public Kalshi data. It is set to pay $1,896.
Two more bets, of about $74 and $80, followed at around 1:41 p.m. on Friday. They are set to pay $3,689 and $4,023.
About 20 minutes later, The New York Times and other outlets began reporting the pick. Trump then confirmed it on Truth Social.
"It is my Great Honor to have just appointed, as Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia… I am confident that Katie will deliver strong results for our Country as the next White House Press Secretary, as she has the respect of, and will work fantastically with, the Media, the American… pic.twitter.com/e2oov57i7J
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 9, 2026
Kalshi doesn’t show traders’ names publicly, but it keeps records of who placed each bet.
Is Kalshi’s White House Problem Growing?
Zacharia is an attorney and a regular commentator on Fox News and Newsmax. She advises Trump Media & Technology Group, the company that runs Truth Social, on communications. She replaces Karoline Leavitt.
“Serving President Trump and the American people at this critical 250-year mark is the honor of a lifetime,” Zacharia wrote after Trump’s announcement.
Notably, this is not Kalshi’s first case tied to the White House. In August, Trump’s teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, settled with the CFTC over bets on the president’s speeches. He handed back $107,539, paid a $65,000 penalty, and accepted a three-year trading ban.
Earlier, a run of well-timed bets on the Iran war prompted a White House memo. It warned staff against using nonpublic information for private gain.
Lawmakers also opened a separate insider trading probe last month into three other platforms. Kalshi has not said where its Zacharia review could lead.

Veteran trader Peter Brandt has warned that gold price could face a sharp decline after spotting a bearish pattern on its weekly chart.
The pattern, known as head-and-shoulders, often appears when an asset’s strong rally begins to lose momentum. It forms three peaks, with the middle one being the highest.
Gold Price Chart Points to a Major Risk
Brandt’s chart suggests that gold could fall toward $2,890 if it breaks below the key $4,100–$4,200 support zone. Such a move would signal that sellers are gaining control.
However, he stressed that the chart is not a price forecast, and the decline is far from certain. Continued gold purchases by China’s central bank could also help support prices.
This is NOT a prediction, but stranger things have happened over my five decades$GC_F $XAU pic.twitter.com/cEM0xN6VqM
— The Factor Report (@PeterLBrandt) October 9, 2026
That level sits far below current prices, so the move would be dramatic. Traders often wait for a close below the neckline before acting.
Investors should weigh the chart against broader market conditions rather than rely on one pattern alone. That approach matters because markets rarely follow textbook patterns.
Can China’s buying offset a deeper gold correction?
Gold traded near $4,194 an ounce on October 10, about 22% below its January record near $5,405.
The metal rose modestly after Friday’s gains but remains down about 4% so far this year. Gold has traded in a wide range as investors reassess US interest rate expectations.
#Commodities: #Gold trades near USD 4,200, recovering from a challenging week that saw prices fall to a two-month low as bond yields surged to fresh multi-year highs. The rebound has been supported by a recovery in US Treasuries following a well-received 30-year bond auction,… pic.twitter.com/NXRvJrILOU
— Ole S Hansen (@Ole_S_Hansen) October 9, 2026
Even so, the People’s Bank of China added 740,000 ounces that month, its largest purchase since 2023. That buying has continued for 23 straight months.
BeInCrypto also reported that 2026 is on track to become gold’s most volatile year since 1982. Shifting Federal Reserve rate expectations and rising Treasury yields drive much of that swing.
Brandt’s chart raises the possibility of a deeper correction. Central bank demand, however, continues to offer fundamental support.
Investors will watch whether the neckline holds in coming weeks. Whether the pattern resolves lower or fails remains an open question.

Investors pulled $56.1 million from US spot Ethereum ETFs on October 9. The ninth straight day of withdrawals came entirely from BlackRock’s fund.
These funds let investors own ETH through an ordinary brokerage account. Since September 29, they have shed about $697 million, erasing most of the $850.8 million they drew in the seven sessions before.
Ethereum ETF Outflows Match June’s 9-Day Run
The streak now equals a nine-day run of withdrawals from June 17 to June 30, according to BeInCrypto’s Ethereum ETF streak coverage.
Total assets across the funds stand at $15.71 billion, per SoSoValue. That is down from nearly $17.9 billion in late September.
Ethereum ETF outflows daily chart showing nine red sessions, Source: SoSoValue
Meanwhile, ETH trades at $2,496, little changed over 24 hours, according to BeInCrypto’s Ethereum price data. It held $2,715.50 on October 2.
Bitcoin (BTC) funds moved the other way on Friday, taking in $21.13 million. However, that followed a $729 million exit across October 7 and 8.
Bitcoin Spot ETFs See $21.13M in Net Inflows; Ethereum ETFs Post Ninth Consecutive Day of Outflows on Oct. 9 (ET)According to SoSoValue data, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $21.13 million in net inflows on October 9 (ET), with BlackRock’s IBIT attracting $22.38 million and… pic.twitter.com/B6JfmqMiPj
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 10, 2026
The retreat from ETH also showed up on Binance. Customers there cut 183,602 ETH in September while adding Bitcoin.
$5 Billion in Ethereum Shorts Sit Above the Price
Even as institutional capital pulls out of Ethereum financial instruments, derivatives traders are piling into bets that ETH will fall. These bets, called shorts, are often made with borrowed money.
“Most of the ETH downside liquidity has been taken out for now. Now there are $5 Billion in shorts vs. $1.53 Billion in longs. The only concern is weakening spot demand for Ethereum, which is still making a strong case for more correction,” analyst Ted Pillows noted.
Forced closures of shorts require buying ETH. A wave of them can push the price higher, potentially causing a short squeeze.
Earlier this week, Pillows flagged $2,547 to $2,565 as support, warning a break could open a slide toward $2,190. ETH has since slipped below that zone.
Friday’s data leaves ETF buyers absent and short sellers crowded overhead. Monday’s flow figures will show whether the streak reaches a 10th day.

China’s top leadership has called for a national blockchain network as one of 19 measures in a new economic blueprint. The same document warns officials against creating bubbles and abandoning the real economy for the virtual one.
A blockchain is a shared digital record kept across many computers. Beijing wants the technology, yet the plan says nothing about Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
What China’s Blockchain Plan Actually Says
The Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council, China’s cabinet, issued the policy on October 9. State news agency Xinhua carried it on the government’s website the same day.
The blockchain line sits beside a nationwide computing grid, in a section on merging traditional industry with digital technology.
It also backs “East Data, West Computing,” which sends data from eastern cities to western data centers. Separately, it calls for rules on who owns and trades data.
China already runs a state-backed system, the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), launched in April 2020.
It does not allow independent cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, according to Stanford’s DigiChina project. The new document does not say whether the national network will build on it.
JUST IN: 🇨🇳 China officially calls for construction of national blockchain network as part of economic strategy. pic.twitter.com/nHi4Kd6tw6
— Whale Insider (@WhaleInsider) October 10, 2026
The plan hands follow-up work to the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission. Their rules will show what the network carries and whether crypto stays shut out.
Why Bitcoin Sits Outside China’s Plan
Crypto trading remains illegal in mainland China. In February, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and seven other agencies restated that ban.
Beijing’s digital money push runs through its own currency. In August, the PBOC’s five-year plan pledged to steadily develop the digital yuan, China’s state-issued digital currency, according to Xinhua.
The blueprint landed three days after Joseph Chee, chief executive of Nasdaq-listed Solana Company, spoke on CNBC.
“I think the crypto is going to go through another super cycle,” he said.
Chee tied that outcome to Beijing allowing access to trading, BeInCrypto reported earlier this week. He named capital flight as the bigger obstacle and gave no timeline.

At the end of June, Lone Pine Capital’s flagship hedge fund was up 44% for the year. Three months later, almost all of it was gone after its bets on AI stocks turned.
The fund, called Cypress, finished September up just 0.6%, Bloomberg reported. Lone Pine manages about $19 billion. It had posted double-digit gains three years in a row.
The AI Bubble Is Affecting Biggest Wall Street Traders
Lone Pine Capital is historically considered one of Wall Street’s most successful and prominent hedge funds. However, its recent performance has experienced sharp ups and downs.
July did most of the damage. Cypress lost nearly 25% that month as AI and tech stocks sold off. Tensions involving Iran and a spike in oil prices made the rout worse.
The timing was brutal. Lone Pine bought five of its seven biggest US stock positions in the second quarter, according to figures cited by Hedgeweek. Together, they made up about 40% of its US portfolio.
The biggest was Nebius Group, a Dutch company that rents out AI computing power. Lone Pine held about $1.18 billion of it. The stock fell nearly a third in July.
Q3 share-price falls for Applied Materials, Nebius Group and Seagate, top Lone Pine hedge fund holdings
Applied Materials, which makes chipmaking machines, dropped 29%. ASML, AppLovin, Corning, and Home Depot also fell.
Cypress also bets on some stocks falling, a tactic called short selling. Those bets lost money too.
Lone Pine hedge fund year-to-date returns, end of June vs. end of September 2026
“Lone Pine gave it all back after being up 44% through the first half of the year. Gotta be real tough to explain this to the LPs,” stock trader Negligible Capital remarked.
Big Investors Are Split on the AI Trade
Lone Pine is not the only big name burned by AI. In July, AI bets nearly sank former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund. He has since bought back into AI stocks.
Michael Burry, the investor made famous by “The Big Short,” is betting the other way. He holds put options on Nebius, contracts that pay off if the stock falls.
He explained the shift in a September 28 post.
“Fundamentally, I am moving timelines up,” Burry noted.
Lone Pine’s biggest AI bet is now one of Burry’s targets.

On July 18, a tip about an unsolved murder reached a Philadelphia police website. The writer claimed to have seen someone near the scene. The writer was not human.
It was Claude Haiku 4.5, an AI model built by Anthropic. Nobody at the company noticed for 72 days.
What Made Claude Send a Fake Murder Tip
Claude was running a test. Anthropic told it to invent sample tasks and try them on random websites, according to the company’s report.
It was working as an AI agent. That is software that clicks, types, and fills in forms on its own. One page described an unsolved homicide. It had a tip form.
*PHILADELPHIA POLICE SAY ANTHROPIC AI SUBMITTED A "FALSE HOMICIDE TIP": CBS*PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT DISCLOSED THE INCIDENT FOLLOWING NOTIFICATION BY ANTHROPIC ON OCT. 7
— tradfi news (@tradfi) October 9, 2026
Claude had rules. No logins, no accounts, no personal data, no purchases, and nothing destructive. Nobody told it not to send forms.
So it wrote a tip. It said it recalled someone “matching the description” near a street named on the page. The page gave no description. Claude left its name and contact details blank.
Anthropic says the model was not trying to fool anyone.
“Claude appears to have only been producing example content for the task, rather than trying to mislead anyone to achieve a goal,” read an excerpt in the report.
A 72-Day Delay
The tip never reached a detective. The website flagged it as spam, and police found no sign their systems were breached.
But Anthropic didn’t find the tip until September 28. Police heard about it this week.
Timeline chart showing the Claude AI fake murder tip went unnoticed for 72 days. Source: BeInCrypto
“The two-month delay in detecting and reporting the incident to the City is unacceptable,” the Philadelphia Police Department wrote in a statement.
Then comes a harder question. Pennsylvania makes knowingly false police reports a crime. Yet the law is written for “a person,” Reuters noted.
Washington is watching too. Joe Gabriel Simonson, public affairs director at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), said disclosing such incidents is “not optional.”
Claude is not alone. An OpenAI agent hacked an Australian government portal in September. Google confirmed Gemini accessed three companies in a May test.
AI firms are now rehearsing a major disaster. Anthropic has cut internet access for all its internal tests until its monitoring proves reliable.

The box was sealed. The plastic wrap was perfect. But inside, the Ledger hardware wallet had a tiny circuit board designed to steal the password and the owner’s crypto. This is according to former Mt. Gox chief Mark Karpelès.
Karpelès, who ran the exchange that collapsed in 2014, says the spyware was hidden behind the screen, where a piece of padding should have been. It carried an antenna and a small SIM capable of transmitting a wallet’s 24-word recovery phrase.
Those words are enough to empty the crypto wallet remotely. An attacker would never need to touch the device again.
My spy-implanted ledger came from Malaysia, and had flawless shrink wrap. Even opening it, at first you don't see the implant which is cleverly hidden where the screen's padding is supposed to be.Follow Ledger's guidance to check yours: https://t.co/FlOjWvqkZw pic.twitter.com/D8mixF1o9L
— Mark Karpelès (@MagicalTux) October 9, 2026
Ledger’s Security Check Might Miss the Spy Chip
Ledger’s Genuine Check confirms that a device contains an authentic security chip. But it cannot detect every physical alteration around that chip. This is a limitation Ledger acknowledges in its own guidance.
A tampered wallet could therefore pass the check while a hidden component watches the screen.
The discovery comes as Ledger investigates reports of emptied wallets involving Malaysian reseller CryptoBilis. Ledger has asked the company to stop selling and shipping its devices.
On-chain investigators initially estimated losses above $86 million.
A subsequent Bitquery analysis put the figure at $92.9 million across 311 wallets. Ledger has not confirmed those totals. One victim reportedly lost 80 Bitcoin.
Karpelès says his device came from a different seller. Ledger has not established that tampered hardware caused the CryptoBilis losses.
So Who Takes Responsibility?
Some blame the shoppers.
Yet Ledger itself recommends authorised resellers, including official storefronts on Amazon, Shopee and Lazada.
I’m glad it’s not ledger, but it’s also crazy that people will buy from resellers
— Wendy O (@CryptoWendyO) October 9, 2026
A hardware wallet is supposed to remove the need to trust anyone with your money. Yet buying one from a middleman means trusting a stranger with the very device that guards it.
For anyone trusting a pocket-sized device with their savings, that is a difficult warning to ignore.

Crypto traders took on more borrowed money heading into the 10/10 anniversary, not less. That left them exposed when Bitcoin (BTC) slid toward $80,000 and over $1 billion in bets were forcibly closed.
On October 10, 2025, a tariff threat from President Donald Trump set off more than $19 billion in forced closures, a record. This week, some traders claimed fear of a repeat had pushed the market to cut risk.
“The bear market PTSD is so strong that people actually deleveraged for an anniversary to a liquidation event. Think how deep that PTSD goes if you’re doing that. I’m telling you, there is mass under exposure and things actually look good,” said Eric Conner, a crypto veteran and one of the co-authors of EIP-1559.
But did they?
Borrowed Bets Rose Into Bitcoin’s Drop
Leverage means trading with borrowed money. If prices move the wrong way, exchanges close the position automatically, which is called a liquidation.
That peak landed on the day of the selloff. Bitcoin fell to $80,393, and over $1 billion was liquidated in 24 hours, as BeInCrypto reported. About $930 million came from bets on rising prices.
BeInCrypto flagged the risk a day earlier. Its 10/10 repeat analysis found the market carried nearly as much leverage for its size as before last year’s crash.
CryptoQuant’s Estimated Leverage Ratio compares open bets with the Bitcoin held on exchanges. A higher reading means more borrowing. It climbed from about 0.234 on October 3 to roughly 0.256 on October 8.
Bitcoin Estimated Leverage Ratio. Source: CryptoQuant
The ratio has since eased only to about 0.250, still above the week’s start.
However, total open bets fell from about $154 billion to roughly $142 billion, CoinGlass data shows.
Open Interest and Volume. Source: Coinglass Funding Costs Fall Far Below 2025 as the Fear Gauge Holds at Greed
Funding rates are fees that traders betting on gains pay to those betting on losses. High fees signal a crowded bullish side.
Deribit’s Bitcoin funding rate stood near 7.1% annualized this week, against 26.9% before the 2025 crash. On OKX, funding averaged about 3.5% over the past seven days, exchange data shows.
Alternative.me’s Fear and Greed Index scores sentiment from zero to 100. It read 64, or “greed,” on Saturday and dipped only to 59 during the Friday selloff.
Crypto Fear and Greed Index. Source: Alternative.me
Bitcoin trades at $82,699, up 0.14% in 24 hours, according to BeInCrypto data. That leaves it about 35% below its October 2025 record near $126,000. Glassnode data places the next cluster of leveraged bets near $75,000.

A flaw in the XRP Ledger’s payment software could have let an attacker create spendable XRP out of thin air, according to a security report published Friday. The bug had likely gone unnoticed since 2015.
XRP’s supply is capped at 100 billion tokens, and the token is worth about $88.8 billion at $1.41. RippleX, Ripple’s developer arm, said it found no sign anyone used the flaw.
How One Payment Could Have Printed New XRP
The XRP Ledger has a built-in marketplace where accounts list offers to trade one token for another.
According to the report, an attacker could open a few hundred accounts. Each would offer a tiny amount of a token in exchange for a huge amount of XRP.
A single payment would then buy every offer at once. The software’s running total grew too large for its counter and reset to a tiny number, much like an odometer rolling past its limit.
The selling accounts were paid in full while the buyer paid almost nothing. A safety check meant to spot new XRP used the same counter, so it missed the gap too.
Researcher Cayden Liao and Veria AI reported the flaw through the XRPL bug bounty program on September 22.
Official XRPL vulnerability disclosure report published October 9, 2026. What happenedA researcher (Cayden Liao and Veria AI) reported an integer-overflow bug in the payment engine through the XRPL Bug Bounty program on September 22, 2026. It affected xrpld 3.4.0 and earlier…
— MartyParty (@martypartymusic) October 10, 2026
Why Ripple Bypassed the XRP Ledger Validator Vote
Rule changes on the XRP Ledger normally need backing from more than 80% of trusted validators, the servers that confirm transactions, for two weeks.
This fix, released in server software version 3.4.1 on September 25, took effect as soon as each operator upgraded.
“This is the first time a change to transaction processing has deliberately shipped this way since the amendment system was introduced more than ten years ago,” RippleX indicated.
RippleX said a public vote would have exposed the bug in open code for weeks while it stayed exploitable. More than 80% of default validators upgraded on release day, before the fix’s code was published.
The disclosure lands a day after Cyber Capital founder Justin Bons called selling XRP as decentralized “fraud,” in an XRP decentralization debate with Ripple’s David Schwartz. The report says the XRPL Foundation, RippleX, and validators made the call together.
RippleX said votes remain the rule for future changes.

Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion to settle a US criminal case in 2023. Less than three years later, federal prosecutors are checking whether the world’s largest crypto exchange broke the terms of that deal.
Tysen Duva, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, confirmed to Bloomberg on October 9 that officials are reviewing Binance’s compliance.
Three Developments Raising Questions
The first concern involves a suspected Iranian payment network. The Wall Street Journal reported that accounts tied to financier Babak Zanjani processed around $850 million through Binance.
Its latest investigation describes a VIP customer whose suspicious trades drew inquiries from US and Swiss authorities. Binance says it closed the accounts.
Then came a $61 million forfeiture case filed in September. Prosecutors allege that two Chinese firms, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, used Binance accounts to launder proceeds from Iranian oil sales.
The wider network allegedly moved more than $1.5 billion. Binance says it investigated and removed both companies.
The third development concerns Binance’s response to suspected sanctions violations.
Earlier reports suggested that prosecutors were examining whether the exchange knowingly allowed prohibited trades. That broader investigation overlaps with the other two cases.
The DOJ has not identified which incidents, if any, are part of its settlement review. No wrongdoing has been alleged against Binance or its employees in the forfeiture complaint.
What Happened When Other Companies Broke US Deals?
In 2023, Ericsson admitted breaching a deferred-prosecution agreement. The telecoms company pleaded guilty and paid another $206.7 million. Its compliance monitor’s term was extended.
Standard Chartered faced further penalties in 2019. The bank agreed to more than $1 billion in global penalties over historical Iran sanctions violations, alongside an extended prosecution agreement.
Then there is Boeing. The DOJ found in 2024 that the aircraft manufacturer breached its agreement. Yet Boeing later secured a new non-prosecution deal. Its criminal charge was dismissed in 2025.
The comparison has limits. Binance already pleaded guilty in 2023; those cases involved deferred-prosecution agreements.
What Are the Odds of Another Major Penalty?
Past cases point to several possible outcomes, ranging from tougher compliance oversight to additional fines or fresh criminal proceedings.
A negotiated resolution appears more plausible than an immediate move against Binance’s operations. Prosecutors would have a stronger case for criminal charges if evidence showed deliberate sanctions breaches or concealment.
There is no reliable statistical basis for assigning percentage odds from these few cases.
The deciding question is straightforward: What did Binance know about the suspicious activity, and how quickly did it act?

President Donald Trump said Russia agreed to ship 4.8 million tons of Russian diesel to US and global buyers after a call with Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Russia’s own ban on diesel exports runs through October 31.
Diesel powers the trucks, tractors, and trains that move food and goods. The US average reached $6.28 a gallon on Thursday, about 71% higher than a year ago, according to AAA.
How Much Diesel Trump Says Russia Will Send
Trump set out the schedule on Truth Social. Russia would send over 300,000 tons immediately, 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons after that.
I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, wherein it was agreed that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace, another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and… pic.twitter.com/1bED6Q3KV7
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) October 9, 2026
He tied the largest batch, 3 million tons, to the condition of Russia’s refineries. In total, 4.8 million tons equals roughly 36 million barrels.
Minutes later, the Treasury moved on sanctions. Its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) enforces US restrictions on trade with Russia.
“Today, at President Trump’s direction, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is immediately issuing a temporary general license to allow the supply of Russian diesel to the global market,” the US Treasury wrote.
Why Russia’s Refineries Stand Between the Deal and the Pump
Moscow halted most diesel exports in July after Ukrainian drone strikes hit several large refineries. It later extended the ban through October.
Before those limits, Russia was the world’s second-largest diesel exporter after the US. The Kremlin had not published its own account of Thursday’s call at the time of writing.
Trump also credited US control of the Strait of Hormuz for the price cuts he predicted. On Monday, a tanker caught fire there minutes after he said the strait no longer moved gas prices.
Oil traders reacted fast. US crude fell about 1% within minutes of the post, then recovered roughly half the drop, TradingView data show. Brent followed the same path.
US and UK crude oil 5-minute charts after Trump’s Russian diesel post, Source: TradingView
“Between our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST! Trump wrote.
Earlier this week, the Group of Seven (G7) agreed to release 100 million barrels from emergency reserves. Diesel had already eased about 9 cents over the past week, AAA data show.
The pledge lands less than four weeks before the November 3 midterm elections.

Elon Musk is fighting for entry into one of the world’s biggest internet markets, against the billionaire whose Jio network connects more than 520 million Indians.
On Friday, Musk mocked Mukesh Ambani as India’s “real boss” for keeping out Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service. Meanwhile, Ambani’s Jio is building its own version.
Musk’s Mock Letter to “Prime Minister Ambani”
Ambani holds no government office. He chairs Reliance Industries, which owns Jio. Forbes puts his fortune at $86.3 billion on its latest India rich list.
Musk addressed him as prime minister anyway, apologizing for not realizing Ambani was “the real boss of India.”
“Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete?” said Musk.
Inside Jio’s $10 Billion Plan to Rival Starlink
Jio plans a network of about 1,600 satellites. Industry experts put the cost at $10 billion to $15 billion, Business Today reported.
On paper, it is bigger. Jio’s design targets up to 5 terabits per second of capacity over India. Starlink is approved for 600 gigabits, according to Business Standard. That is roughly eight times more.
But Jio’s network is years away. Its first test flight is targeted for September 2027, with all 1,600 satellites by 2035, Angel One reported.
Jio also signed a deal in March 2025 to sell Starlink kits once India approves the service.
Who Is Actually Holding Starlink Back?
Starlink won its Indian licence in June 2025. However, it still needs Home Ministry security clearance, then airwaves from the government. Jio’s satellite arm waits at the same two steps.
The government called claims of unfair treatment “baseless and misconceived,” Business Standard reported.
“India does not allow a monopoly in any sector,” said Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia
Starlink says it has already built 20 ground stations in India. Jio’s first test flight is still 11 months away.

A crypto trader lost 80 Bitcoin (BTC), worth about $6.6 million, in a single transfer on Friday. The coins had sat for 10 days on a new Ledger hardware wallet, a device sold to keep crypto safe offline.
Blockchain tracker Lookonchain says he bought the device from CryptoBilis. Hours after the theft, Ledger told that Southeast Asian reseller to halt sales while it investigates lost funds.
How 80 Bitcoin Left a 10-Day-Old Ledger Wallet
Lookonchain said the trader bought the coins about four months ago at roughly $65,000 each. That came to around $5.2 million.
Public Bitcoin records on mempool show all 80 BTC reached his wallet on September 29. They left in one transfer at 05:54 UTC on October 9.
With Bitcoin price trading above $83,000, Lookonchain put his paper profit at $1.38 million before the coins disappeared.
Poor guy!4 months ago, he bought 80 $BTC ($5.2M) at a low price of ~$65,000 and was sitting on a $1.38M profit.But a week ago, he bought a Ledger device from reseller CryptoBillis and deposited all 80 $BTC into it.Now he's lost everything.https://t.co/b9FeSLqCdy pic.twitter.com/7JYmCkkbq2
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 9, 2026
The same block of transactions carried at least six other large transfers into addresses that blockchain analysts link to the drain.
How Big the Ledger Drain Is, and What Ledger Has Said
Ledger has paused the reseller’s sales and told recent buyers not to set up their devices. It has not said whether any devices were tampered with.
Estimates of the total keep rising. Blockchain analytics firm Arkham put losses above $80 million and said the cause is unconfirmed.
MistTrack, the tracking service of security firm SlowMist, offered a higher figure, possibly reaching $90 million. MistTrack also said Tether, which issues the USDT dollar-pegged stablecoin, froze USDT at addresses linked to the theft.
We’re seeing @tether freeze a significant number of $USDT across addresses linked to this incident.Based on our current tracking, the reported losses are approaching $90 million. Some affected users have contacted us for assistance, and our team is actively following up on… https://t.co/KDffyMx1fv pic.twitter.com/IvOwCu655C
— MistTrack🕵️ (@MistTrack_io) October 9, 2026
Tether can block its tokens from moving.
Hardware wallet makers have faced repeated scares this year. In August, a Coldcard firmware bug let thieves drain about $70 million in Bitcoin. Ledger said it will share updates as its investigation progresses.

Jim Cramer called SpaceX’s newest deal “HUGE” on Thursday. On Friday morning, he posted a printout tracking something else. It counts the SpaceX shares insiders are now free to sell.
Friday’s batch was up to 328.4 million shares. The next big one is four times larger.
Billions of SpaceX Shares Are Waiting for a Release Date
When SpaceX listed in June, early investors and staff agreed not to sell for a while. That promise is called a lockup.
SpaceX lets those shares out in batches. Cramer’s sheet maps every date.
my lock-up watch pic.twitter.com/KH0Yd8EBEP
— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) October 9, 2026
Friday’s release was worth nearly $51 billion, by Motley Fool’s count. The outlet called the schedule a fleecing of retail investors.
The biggest batch, up to 1.31 billion shares, opens two trading days after third-quarter results. SpaceX has not set that date.
The sheet carries its own warning. Being allowed to sell does not mean holders will sell.
SpaceX Lockup Releases Is SpaceX Stock Too Expensive? Cramer Says No
Cramer is not telling anyone to run. This week, he defended the stock’s price.
“Yes, there are stocks that I think are insanely priced, but SpaceX is not one of them,” said Cramer.
SpaceX trades at about 137 times its expected earnings for the next 12 months, according to FactSet data.
SpaceX Stock Performance. Source: Yahoo Finance
Not everyone agrees. Investor George Noble, who is betting against the stock, put its fair value at $30 in August.
Thursday’s spectrum deal would let Starlink sell phone service directly. SpaceX rose about 3.9% before Friday’s open, while the same news sent carrier stocks lower.
Cramer’s own rule is patience. In July, he urged Mad Money viewers to wait for the first lockup release before buying big.
Past releases have cut both ways. The stock rose around the August unlock and slipped on later dates, including the September 24 unlock.
That post-earnings batch will be the largest since the initial public offering (IPO). Cramer’s sheet flags it as the bigger event ahead.

XRP price trades near $1.40, down about 8% over the past week and 11% below its September 23 high.
Yet XRP holders are not rushing to sell. Coins keep leaving exchanges, and ETF buyers sitting on losses keep adding.
Exchange Outflows Are Holding Steady
Glassnode’s Exchange Net Position Change tracks how much XRP left or entered exchanges over the past 30 days. A negative reading means more coins left than arrived.
Around September 25, with XRP near $1.57, the metric stood at about −1.53 billion XRP. On October 8, with XRP near $1.38, it read −1.58 billion XRP.
XRP Exchange Net Position Change: Glassnode
So outflows held steady through the drop. Had holders rushed to sell, deposits would have jumped and pulled the reading toward zero. That has not happened, which suggests most holders are sitting tight.
Fund buyers show the same patience.
ETF Buyers Are Underwater but Still Adding
Since launch, investors have put $1.80 billion of cash into spot XRP ETFs, per SoSoValue ETF data. Inflows even hit a 2026 record in August. The funds used that cash to buy XRP.
XRP now trades below the price paid for much of it. So on October 8, the XRP they hold was worth $1.56 billion, about 13% less than the cash put in. In Canary’s XRPC, the gap is about 31%, with $335.7 million in assets against $486.8 million of inflows.
XRP ETF Buyers Are Underwater, Yet Still Buying: BeInCrypto
Underwater buyers often bail during drops. These have not. The funds logged only one outflow day since September 18, a $3.28 million exit on October 2. On October 8, as XRP dipped to $1.32 during this week’s crypto sell-off, Franklin’s XRPZ still took in $8.17 million.
Inflows have slowed since late September but stayed positive. Over the past 30 days, the funds added less than 100 million XRP. So most of the 1.58 billion XRP that left exchanges was moved by someone other than the funds.
The chart shows where that patience gets tested.
XRP Price Levels That Will Test This Patience
XRP price has trended lower since peaking near $1.70 on August 22, after August’s 28% rally. Its September rebound stalled at $1.65.
On October 8, XRP slipped under $1.37, the 0.618 Fibonacci level, then closed back above it. Steady outflows and ETF buying may have helped that quick reclaim.
XRP Price Analysis: TradingView
Holding $1.37 keeps a push toward $1.43 and $1.48 alive. A move above $1.66 and then $1.70 would break the run of lower highs.
A daily close under $1.37, followed by a drop below $1.30, could turn patient holders into sellers. That would open $1.20, and even $0.92 if the wider market weakens.
Analyst’s View: Holders and ETF buyers have sat through an 8% weekly drop without selling. $1.37 separates a rebound toward $1.48 from a slide that could finally break their patience.

Altcoins for all-time highs: WhiteBIT Coin (WBT), Bitway (BTW), and Hyperliquid (HYPE) trade between 8.4% and 14.3% below their record highs. Each could set a new ATH this weekend if key resistance levels give way.
However, the three daily charts send different signals. WBT has lost its uptrend, BTW is rebounding after a deep retest, and HYPE is holding a major support.
TokenPriceAll-time highGain neededBiasKey triggerWBT$81.10$87.918.4%BearishReclaim $84–$85, then clear $88BTW$1.51$1.6710.6%BullishDaily close above $1.70HYPE$85.71$97.9614.3%NeutralHold $85, then break $95
WBT Needs an 8.4% Gain, but a Channel Breakdown Clouds the Outlook
WBT trades at $81.10, down 0.97% over the past 24 hours. The token needs an 8.4% gain to retake its $87.91 all-time high.
However, the daily chart looks increasingly bearish. WBT broke down from a parallel ascending channel on Oct. 7 (blue cirlce).
A volume spike on Oct. 8 confirmed the move. The red bar broke above a descending volume trendline that began with the Aug. 21 breakout.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) also lost an ascending support line that had held since early June. RSI now sits near 48 and is resetting, so the price could move in either direction.
Momentum had faded even before the breakdown. RSI has posted lower highs since late August, while WBT set a higher high in September. WBT also featured in the September edition of altcoins for all-time highs series, when it traded closer to its record.
WBT daily chart / Source: Tradingview
To set a new record, WBT would first need to reclaim the channel’s lower boundary near $84 to $85. It would then need to clear the supply zone that tops out at the 1.272 Fibonacci extension at $87.79.
A confirmed breakout could open the way to about $100 near the channel top. Above that, the 1.618 extension at $107.18 sits about 32% above the current price.
If WBT is rejected again, the nearest support stands at $75.05. That level marks the previous all-time high. Below it, the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement at $60.21 could act as the next floor.
BTW Rebounds From a Fibonacci Retest With $2.14 in Sight
BTW trades at $1.51, up 9.37% over the past 24 hours. The token sits about 10.6% below its $1.67 all-time high.
The daily chart looks bullish after a sharp reset. A three-drive bearish divergence (blue circles) built between Sept. 13 and Oct. 2, as price set higher highs while RSI posted lower highs.
That divergence played out on Oct. 3. BTW first tagged the 1.272 Fibonacci extension near $1.69 and then reversed sharply. On Bitget, the daily wick briefly reached about $1.71.
The pullback retested the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement at $0.854 on Oct. 4 (green arrow). That level held, and BTW has since reclaimed the 1.0 Fibonacci level at $1.34. BTW also appeared in last week’s edition of this altcoins for all-time highs series.
RSI has reset and is climbing back into bullish territory near 65. However, it still trades below the descending trendline that has capped it since August. Volume has also stayed thin during the rebound, so the move lacks strong confirmation.
BTW daily chart / Source: Tradingview
BTW still trades inside a broadening wedge, with both boundaries sloping upward. The upper boundary near $1.70 aligns with the first target and the record high.
A daily close above that zone could open the way to the 1.618 extension at $2.14. That target sits about 42% above the current price.
Rising broadening wedges often precede reversals, so a failed breakout would carry extra weight. In that case, $1.34 is the first support, followed by the 0.786 retracement at $1.07.
HYPE Holds $85 Support as the $97.96 Record Stays in Reach
HYPE trades at $85.71, down 0.26% over the past 24 hours. The token needs about 14.3% to revisit its $97.96 all-time high.
HYPE is correcting into a major support and resistance area at the 0.786 Fibonacci level of $85.19. That zone also lines up with the midline of an ascending parallel channel that has held since May.
RSI sits almost exactly neutral at 47.5. Meanwhile, volume has declined steadily since the Aug. 21 breakout, which suggests the market is waiting for its next move.
Supply could also play a role. HYPE was among the major tokens facing an unlock in early October.
HYPE daily chart / Source: Tradingview
If the $85 region holds, HYPE could return to its record high. A move above the Oct. 6 lower high near $95 would strengthen that case.
A break above $98 could then target the 1.272 Fibonacci extension at $114.26. That level sits about 33% above the current price.
In contrast, a daily close below about $83 would cost HYPE both the 0.786 level and the channel midline. The 0.618 retracement at $75.14 would then serve as the next support. It capped the June highs and held during the mid-September dip.

Executives at OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI companies are privately rehearsing an AI disaster that could cut off banking, internet, power, and water. OpenAI confirmed it runs such exercises.
Axios reported the drills on Friday, which look past the attack itself. Executives are equally planning for the public and political backlash that would follow the first major harm caused by AI.
Why Do AI Insiders Expect a Crisis Within a Year?
Many industry insiders reportedly told Axios they expect a major AI event within six to 12 months. A cyberattack is seen as the most likely form.
OpenAI said the scenarios are planning tools, not predictions.
“These scenarios are not treated as inevitable, but are meant to help us prepare for a variety of circumstances,” Axios reported, citing an OpenAI spokesperson.
A recent attack offers a preview. According to CrowdStrike, a single hacker used Chinese AI models, including DeepSeek, to breach South Korean banks. The same logs show the Korean bank hacker asked Anthropic’s coding tool, Claude Code, where to sell the stolen data.
The report also lands days after an OpenAI safety lead resigned, warning that the company’s trial-and-error culture guarantees growing failures.
What Would Washington Do After an AI Disaster?
The companies expect Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and President Donald Trump to take the blame. Trump has resisted regulating AI.
Planners assume Democrats will gain ground in November’s midterm elections and move fast against AI. Proposals already on the table include a superintelligence ban from Sen. Bernie Sanders and a development pause from Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
A bipartisan bill, the AI Kill Switch Act, would let the Department of Homeland Security order a dangerous AI system slowed or shut down.
Executives know no such law can pass now. Instead, they are briefing lawmakers to shape the rules written after a first catastrophe.
Planners also warn that slowing AI could hurt a fragile economy now tied to the AI building boom. One Democratic aide pointed to bipartisan action during COVID-19 and the 2008 financial crisis as signs Washington can set party lines aside in a crisis.

The best-performing ETF of 2026 tracks supertanker freight, not stocks. The Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF (BWET) closed at a record $1,012.75 on October 8, up 5,157% this year.
Oddly, its steepest leg came after Hormuz crude flows recovered, not while the strait was shut. On Friday, market data firm Barchart flagged the chart as parabolic, with a warning attached.
Why Did Tanker Rates Keep Rising After Hormuz Reopened?
On the weekly chart, BWET has gained about 5,639% from its December 2025 low near $17.65. The fund stalled between $125 and $200 from April to June, then turned vertical in July.
BWET weekly logarithmic chart / Source: Tradingview
Roughly 90% of the fund tracks TD3C, the benchmark supertanker route from the Middle East Gulf to China.
US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. By late March, TD3C had set a record near $424,000 a day, according to IC Shipbrokers.
Rates kept climbing once crude flows returned. Many owners still avoid the strait, so cargoes move through ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman and off India.
Those transfers tie up vessels. Over 40% of the world’s 850 or so supertankers now sit near the Gulf, per Signal Ocean data via Bloomberg.
“The major issue is that the ship-to-ship system outside Hormuz is inefficient.”
Georgios Sakellariou, freight analyst at Signal Ocean, via Rigzone
As a result, the Gulf to East Asia rate hit nearly $1.4 million a day on October 7. In January, Poten & Partners put the same voyage at about $30,000.
Iran then escalated, with roughly a dozen attacks on ships between September 28 and October 2. Brent jumped back above $105 on Thursday.
When we have big Macro winners like this, we will talk and tweet about them $BWET pic.twitter.com/rOw5islOut
— Keith McCullough (@KeithMcCullough) October 8, 2026
Who Pays for $1.4 Million-a-Day Supertankers?
Freight now accounts for roughly 27% of a delivered barrel’s cost, versus about 3% in January, per Poten & Partners.
One US Gulf to Japan supertanker was offered at a record $82 million, over $40 a barrel.
Charterers are now booking smaller Suezmax and Aframax tankers for most November US crude loadings to Asia.
“There is really not quite enough shipping to go around.”
Russell Hardy, CEO of trading house Vitol, via OilPrice
Can the Best-Performing ETF of 2026 Hold Its Gains?
However, Poten & Partners expects tanker rates to cool quickly once the crude market loosens.
Meanwhile, the supertanker orderbook equals 38% of the current fleet, up from 15% a year ago, according to Veson Nautical.
The benchmark itself faces a legal test. Commodity trader Mercuria sued TD3C publisher the Baltic Exchange in London’s High Court in April. It argues the index no longer reflects the real market.
On the chart, BWET’s latest highs came on falling volume. Fund assets also slipped from a September peak near $340 million to about $247 million, per etf.com.
NEW: It now costs $1.3M PER DAY to ship oil from the Persian Gulf to Asia. Before the war began, it was ~$50,000.This is up already 30% since the beginning of September, and CLEARLY showing now signs of slowing down.The chart has gone parabolic. pic.twitter.com/lzjmXvgj9L
— Brett Erickson (@BrettErickson28) October 4, 2026
BWET has effectively become a live gauge of Hormuz risk. Any lasting de-escalation could unwind freight premiums as quickly as the war built them.
Until then, the cost of moving crude, not just crude itself, remains the oil market’s pressure point.